Bird Friendly Coffee

The Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center has developed the only 100% organic and shade-grown coffee certification available: Bird Friendly.

That's right—no other bag guarantees that every bean is produced organically and under high-quality shade.
Our seal of approval ensures tropical "agroforests" are preserved and migratory birds find a healthy haven when they travel from your backyard to those faraway farms producing the
beans you so enjoy every morning.

Great for birds and for people

With widespread clear cutting for sun coffee plantations, it's imperative to protect the tropical forest that remains and rehabilitate degraded ecosystems.
Every cup of Bird Friendly coffee you drink encourages more farmers to grow in the shade, which is good for birds and for people.

First, the coffee is certified organic, which means managing a healthy soil base and applying no harmful pesticides to the coffee that could otherwise run off into streams and rivers.
This helps reduce the billions of pounds of noxious chemicals injected annually into natural ecosystems that support wildlife and communities.

But our program goes a step further, requiring a variety of native shade trees throughout the coffee plantation.
Through decades of research, we've learned the combination of foliage cover, tree height and diversity needed to provide suitable migratory bird habitat while maintaining productive
farms. Producers must be recertified every three years to ensure they continue to meet these requirements and can truly call themselves Bird Friendly.

This results in better-tasting coffee—its rich flavor comes from beans maturing slowly in the shade.
Farmers protect water sources for their communities and sequester carbon by managing the forest-like system, which also provides a host of other products like cacao and spices.
And the premium prices they fetch for Bird Friendly coffee supports their families and local economies.

What makes us different? Product purity.

Some certification programs allow a small percentage of non-certified product in their bag, recognizing the difficulty of controlling the process at the farm level.
Other sustainable coffee programs permit product dilution, allowing as little as 30 percent to meet their standards and still carry their certification label.
Some shade-grown programs don't require shade trees meet a minimum height—a factor studies proved is critical to create quality habitat for neotropical migrants and resident birds.

SMBC's Bird Friendly certification is the only one that is 100 percent guaranteed organic and shade-grown, and translates to the healthiest farms.